Marinette County, with one of the worst heroin problems in the state, has taken the offensive in its fight against the drug and other opiates.

The county has launched a drug specialty court, similar to one Brown County has been running for five years, but geared specifically to Marinette's unique situation.

In 2013, the county of just 41,610 people had the state's 14th highest number of heroin-related court cases. It led the state from 2008 to 2012 in per capita seizures of heroin by police.

Marinette also was among the top 10 counties in the state for heroin deaths. The six deaths that occurred means 1.44 per 10,000 people, the highest death rate in the state that year. Something wasn't working.

"Law enforcement and our court system has done a great job at arresting and jailing people, but we can't arrest our way out of the problem," said Robin Elsner, director of the county's Health and Human Services Department.

Part of the problem is the nature of heroin addiction.

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"I'm not a squishy guy, I'm not afraid to send people to prison, but this is insane," Marinette County Circuit Judge James Morrison said.

"To have people come out of prison clean and, six days later, head right back to the same place, without a job, without a support system, to the same friends and use again — the recidivism rate in Marinette County is approaching 100 percent."

At the end of last year, Elsner submitted a grant application to the state, which had just expanded the grant money available to counties for establishing treatment, alternative and diversion programs and drug courts.

Drug courts are used as a condition of probation for convicted drug abusers. While probation imposes restrictions and responsibilities on convicted felons, drug court imposes more. It puts a team in place, led by a judge, that scrutinizes behavior, attempts to find or keep a job, drug counseling attendance and sobriety.

They provide a graduated approach, meaning it incrementally allows more freedom as the participant succeeds, but occasional backslides will move the participant back to the beginning. However, too many backslides could land the participant out of the program and in prison.

Marinette County received $124,502 from the state and is providing an additional $41,334 of its own to start the drug court.

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The money has been used to hire a full-time drug court coordinator. That's Sara Plansky-Pecor, formerly a child and family assessment investigator on Elsner's staff. The money also will expand the hours of assistant district attorney DeShea Morrow, who will handle the cases from the prosecution side.

The cash also will allow the county to rent the equipment needed to test drug court participants regularly and frequently make sure they remain drug free.

"The way we're structured, I've been over the last several years doing most of the high-end drug prosecutions," assistant district attorney Kent Hoffmann said. "I'm going to continue to handle those cases, where we're looking for a significant sentence from the public safety perspective, but cases that meet the criteria for drug court, we will identify here.

"There's a screening process that's been set up, to determine whether they meet the high-risk, high-need criteria."

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If the defendant is deemed suitable and agrees to participate, Morrow takes over the prosecution process even as the defendant already begins undergoing treatment and appearing in drug court.

"Part of the reason for it being fast-tracked is, the quicker the treatment, the more likely it is to be successful," Morrow said.

"What people are telling us is that in order to effectuate change, you need to give them a carrot. And the period before sentencing gives a good indicator of how motivated they are."

Eventually, the defendant is expected to plead guilty, and Morrison, who will handle the drug court, imposes a prison term but then stays it and orders the drug court as a condition of probation. With a stayed sentence, that means failure to adhere to the rules of drug court can immediately be punishable by prison or jail, rather than having to go through a series of expensive court proceedings to re-establish a prison term.

People in the drug court, because of they're participating prior to conviction, will be out on bail while awaiting disposition.

"We're going to save the county 120 to 130 days of typical jail time for most of these people," Morrison said.

"That's a lot of saving of money, and they're going to be out in the community following all the rule of drug court just as if they are already in it., doing community service, urinalysis, coming to the meetings."

Morrison, prosecutors and the drug court team have spent countless hours of studying other community drug courts, like Brown County's, and also training to implement their own plan.

Brown County's program had 49 participants in its five year history. Eighteen drug defendants have successfully completed the program, and only three have re-offended since graduation.

Marinette County, focusing on its own heroin and opiate abuse, may not see that level of success because of the high level of addiction involved. Officials, however, still hope to see an overall reduction of drug use and related crimes in coming years.

It has identified a couple of possible participants, for who the screening process has just begun. An actual start-up date for drug court hasn't been established.

Meanwhile, Brown County has been following Marinette's lead by developing a drug court that specifically targets heroin abuse.

Brown County is developing both a heroin court and a mental illness court, which are intended to use similar methods to divert certain offenders from the prison system. The two new courts are expected to start before the end of the year.

— psrubas@pressgazettemedia.com and follow him on Twitter@PGpaulsrubas.